I’m sorry, but competition is good.
Installing some closed blob into your kernel, that’s on you.
The problem is if anything is not enough competition. We just saw a centralized monoculture fall over.
Blaming the EU is stupid MacOS is locked down, for the EU it’s more about apps less about the kernel space.
Security software are also “apps”. Since Microsoft is also in the security software business locking down access for their competitors could definitely be seen as anti-competitive practices.
Apple doesn’t have a monopoly with MacOS so other rules apply.
I’m pretty sure that if Microsoft provided a decent way to do what Crowdstrike does, most companies would opt for that.
So… Sucks to suck I guess.
Why should MS do that? I guess if they saw a market value for it, they could. Like how Defender came to be after 20 years of third party anti-virus.
They certainly developed the tech for it - I remember reading about some of their research circa 2000 making the OS and everything on it a database. They’ve kind of been working that direction for years (see MyLifeBits).
I suppose they could provide an add-on tool for this, but I suspect there’s a political barrier (imagine the blowback of MS providing such a tool).
The document states that Microsoft is obligated to make available its APIs in its Windows Client and Server operating systems that are used by its security products to third-party security software makers.
The document does not, however say those APIs have to exist. Microsoft could eliminate them for its own security products and then there would be no issue.
The document that outlines the agreement between Microsoft and the European Commission is available as a Doc file on Microsoft’s website.
…which seems to be inaccessible. I highly doubt this document specifically said “giv’em ring-0 access”, this is just MS trying to deflect blame and cash it at the same time.
